* J&K adds 4,615 cases; 7 deaths *
STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Sunday announced a seven-hour relaxation in the restriction on non-essential movement amid concerns raised by traders over the 64-hour long weekend Covid lockdown hampering their businesses.
A fortnight ago, the administration had imposed complete a restriction on non-essential movement from Fridays 2:00 PM to Mondays 6:00 AM to rein in the surge in COVID-19 cases.
Traders of Jammu and Srinagar had sought a review of the weekend restrictions, stating they have already suffered huge economic losses owing to the outbreak of the pandemic.
The new lockdown restrictions on non-essential movement would be from every Friday 9:00 PM to Monday 6:00 AM, said the State Executive Committee (SEC) which met under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary A K Mehta to review the overall COVID situation.
This will come into effect from next weekend, the SEC said.
Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir has recorded 4,615 fresh coronavirus cases during the past 24 hours that took its infection tally to 4,32,875, while seven more fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,659, officials said.
Of the fresh cases, 1,401 were from the Jammu division and 3,214 from the Kashmir division, they said, adding that four and three deaths were respectively recorded from the two provinces during the past 24 hours.
Srinagar district recorded the highest number of fresh cases at 889, followed by 826 in Jammu district.
The number of active coronavirus cases in Jammu and Kashmir stands at 40,270. So far, 3,87,946 patients have recovered from the viral infection, the officials said.
There are 51 mucormycosis (black fungus) cases in the union territory. No fresh case has been reported since last evening, they said.
According to reports from Leh, one person died of coronavirus in Ladakh, while 227 fresh cases pushed the overall virus tally in the Union Territory to 25,763, officials said.
The new death was reported from Leh district on Saturday, taking the overall death toll since the outbreak of the pandemic to 224, the officials said.
They said a total of 1,144 people were tested for COVID-19 in the twin districts on Saturday and 227 of them returned positive. They included 134 in Leh and 93 in Kargil.
The officials said 249 Coronavirus patients were discharged from hospitals in Leh and 11 others in Kargil, taking the number of cured patients in Ladakh to 24,278.
There are 1,261 active cases with 854 in Leh and 407 in Kargil, the officials said.